Category: Toyota Kata

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Coaching Kata: Walking Through an Improvement Board

Improver's Storyboard

The Coaching Kata is much more than just asking the 5 questions. The coach needs to pay attention to the answers and make sure the thinking flows.

Although I have alluded to pieces in prior posts, today I want to go over how I try to connect the dots during a coaching cycle.

Does the learner understand the challenge she is striving for?

The “5 Questions” of the Coaching Kata do not explicitly ask about the challenge the learner is striving for. This makes sense because the challenge generally doesn’t change over the course of a week or two.

But I often see challenges that are vague, defined only by a general direction like “reduce.” The question I ask at that point is “How will you know when you have achieved the challenge?”

If there isn’t a measurable outcome (and sometimes there isn’t), I am probing to see if the learner really understands what he must achieve to meet the challenge.

This usually comes up when I am 2nd coaching and the learner and regular coach haven’t really reached a meeting of the minds on what the challenge is.

Is the target condition a logical step in the direction of the challenge?

And is the target condition based on a thorough grasp of the current condition?

I’m going to start with this secondary question since I run into this issue more often, especially in organizations with novice coaches. (And, by definition, that is most of the organizations where I spend time.)

It is quite common for the learner to first try to establish a target condition, and then grasp the current condition. Not surprisingly, they struggle with that approach. It sometimes helps to have the four steps of the Improvement Kata up near the board, and even go as far as to have a “You are here” arrow.

Four steps of the Improvement Kata
(c) Mike Rother

Another question I ask myself is Can I directly compare the target condition and the current condition? Can I see the gap, can I see the same indicators and measurements used for each so I can compare “apples vs apples”?

Along with this is the same question I ask for the challenge, only more so for the target condition:

How will the learner be able to tell when the target is met? Since this has a short-term deadline, I am really looking for a crisp, black-and-white line here. The target condition is either met or not met on the date.

Is there a short-term date that is in the future?

It is pretty common for a novice learner to set a target condition equal to the challenge. If they are over-reaching, I’ll impose a date, usually no more than two weeks out. “Where will you be in two weeks?” Another way to ask is “What will the current condition be in two weeks?”

Sometimes the learner has slid up to the date and past it. Watch for this! If the date comes up without hitting the target, then it is time to reflect and establish a new target condition in the future.

Is the target condition a step in the direction of the challenge?

Usually the link between the target condition and the overall challenge is pretty obvious. Sometimes, though, it isn’t clear to the coach, even if it is clear in the mind of the learner. In these cases, it is important for the coach to ask.

Key Point: The coach isn’t rigidly locked into the script of the 5 questions. The purpose of follow-up questions is to (1) actually get an answer to the Coaching Kata questions and (2) make sure the coach understands how the learner is thinking. Remember coach: It is the learner’s thinking that you are working to improve, so you have to understand it!

(And occasionally the learner will try to establish a target condition that really isn’t related to the challenge.)

Does the “obstacle being addressed” actually relate to the target condition?

(Always keep your marshmallow on top!)

The question is “What obstacles do you think are preventing you from reaching the target condition?” That question should be answered with a reading of all of the obstacles. (Again, the coach is trying to understand what the learner is thinking.) Then “Which one (obstacle) are you addressing now?”

Generally I give a pretty broad (though not infinitely broad) pass to the obstacles on the list. They are, after all, the learner’s opinion (“…do you think are…”). But when it comes to the “obstacle being addressed now” I apply a little more scrutiny.

I have addressed this with a tip in a previous post: TOYOTA KATA: IS THAT REALLY AN OBSTACLE?

It is perfectly legitimate, especially early on, for an obstacle to be something we need to learn more about. The boundary between “Grasp the current condition” and “Establish the next target condition” can be blurry. As the focus is narrowed, the learner may well have to go back and dig into some more detail about the current condition. If that is impeding getting to the target, then just write it down, and be clear what information is needed. Then establish a step that will get that information.

Sometimes the learner will write down every obstacle they perceive to reaching the challenge. The whole point of establishing a Target Condition is to narrow the scope of what needs to be worked on down to something easier to deal with. When I focus them on only the obstacles that relate directly to their Target Condition, many are understandably reluctant to simply cross other (legitimate, just not “right now”) issues off the list.

In this case it can be helpful to establish a second Obstacle Parking Lot off to the side that has these longer-term obstacles and problems on it. That does a couple of things. It can remind the coach (who is often the boss) that, yes, we know those are issues, but we aren’t working on those right now. Other team members who contribute their thinking can also know they were heard, and those issues will be addressed when they are actually impeding progress.

Does the “Next step or experiment” lead to learning about the obstacle being addressed?

Sometimes it helps to have the learner first list what they need to learn, and then fill in what they are going to do. See this previous post for the details: IMPROVEMENT KATA: NEXT STEP AND EXPECTED RESULT.

In any case, I am looking to see an “Expected result” that at least implies learning.

In “When can we go and see what we have learned from taking that step?” I am also looking for a fast turn-around. It is common for the next step to be bigger than it needs to be. “What can you do today that will help you learn?” can sometimes help clarify that the learner doesn’t always need to try a full-up fix. It may be more productive to test the idea in a limited way just to make sure it will work the way she thinks it will. That is faster than a big project that ends up not working.

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Toyota Kata: What is the Learner Learning?

In the language of Toyota Kata we have a “coach” and a “learner.” Some organizations use the word “improver” instead of “learner.” I have used those terms more or less interchangeably. Now I am getting more insight into what the “learner” is learning.

The obvious answer is that, by practicing the Improvement Kata, the learner is learning the thinking pattern that is behind solid problem solving and continuous improvement.

But now I am reading more into the role. The “learner” is also the one who is learning about the process, the problems, and the solutions.

Steve Spear has a mantra of “See a problem, solve a problem, teach somebody.” This is, I think, the role of the learner.

What about the coach?

The coach is using the Coaching Kata to learn how to ask questions that drive learning. He may also be un-learning how to just have all of the answers.

As the coach develops skill, I advise sticking to the Coaching Kata structure for the benefit of beginner learners. It is easier for them to be prepared if they understand the questions and how to answer them. That, in turn, teaches them the thinking required to develop those answers.

Everybody is a Learner

The final question in the “5 Questions” is “When can we go and see what we have learned from taking that step?” It isn’t when can I see what You have learned. It is a “we” question because nobody knows the answers yet.

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The Improvement Kata: Next Step and Expected Result

In the Improvement Kata sometimes it helps to think about the outcome desired and then the step required to accomplish it.

A couple of months ago, I gave a tip I’ve learned for helping a coach vet an obstacle.

Another issue I come across frequently is a weak link between the “Next Step” and the “Expected Outcome.”

In the “Five Questions” of the Coaching Kata we have:

“What is your next step or experiment?” Here we expect the learner / improver to describe something he is going to do. I’m looking for a coherent statement that includes a subject, verb, object here.

Then we ask “What do you expect?” meaning “What do you expect to happen?” or “What do you expect to learn?” from taking that step?

I want to see that the “Expected Result” is a clear and direct consequence of taking the “Next Step.”

Often, though, the learner struggles a bit with being clear about the expected outcome, or just re-states the next step in the past tense.

While this is the order we ask the questions, sometimes it helps to think about them in reverse.

Reverse the Order

Have the learner first, think about (and then describe) what she is trying to accomplish with this step. Look at the obstacle being addressed, and what was learned from the last step.

Based on those things, ask “what do you want to accomplish with your next step?”

The goal here is to get the learner to think about the desired result. Don’t be surprised if that is still stated as something to do, because we are all conditioned to think in terms of action items, not outcomes.

“What do you need to learn?” sometimes helps.

“I need to learn if ______ will eliminate the problem.” might be a reply.

Even a proposed change to the process usually has “to learn if” as an expected outcome, because we generally don’t know for certain what the outcome will be until we try it.

Have the learner fill in the “Expected Outcome” block.

NOW ask “OK, what do you have to do to ______ (read what is in the expected outcome)?”

PDCA Outcome-Activity

That should get your learner thinking about the actions that will lead to that outcome.

A Verbal Test

A verbal test can be to say “In order to ______ (read the expected outcome), I intend to _____ (read the next step.”

If that makes sense grammatically and logically, it is probably well thought out.

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Delivering the Patient Satisfaction Experience

“Our challenge is to improve our patient satisfaction scores.”

This seems to be a fairly common theme as I continue to work in the health care arena.

Background

In the U.S. at least, most major health care operations use one of a couple of major service providers (such as Press Ganey) to survey their patients, and report aggregated patient satisfaction scores to them. Those scores provide a percentile rank of how that facility stacks up against others across various categories. The scores are also made public, and often influence public funding decisions within a region. Thus, they are a big deal.

Chasing the Patient Satisfaction Numbers Doesn’t Work

Here’s the problem. More than a few times I have seen an improver working on a challenge to improve these patient satisfaction numbers. It might be something like “Achieve a 70th percentile score on ___.) with a specific score that has to do with their area.

So far, that’s not a real problem. But what happens next might be.

It is very common to focus solely on the end result, without a lot of thought into the underlying things that drive that result.

Specifically, I have seen more than a couple of cases where a manager is working to directly influence how a patient (customer) will answer the questions on the survey. They parse the question, and try to determine what this word, or that word, actually means to “the patient.” The worst case was trying to introduce fairly heavy handed scripting… “Is there anything I can do for you to be more comfortable?” into every patient interaction.

I certainly can’t speak for the population of patients, but I can say that when I pick up on a scripted phrase, I become very aware of what it is, and it leaves a disingenuous taste.

It’s About the Patient Experience

The patients’ experience is what drives how (and even if) they will answer the questions on these surveys. If their experience was overall favorable, they will be biased to give favorable replies. The opposite is even more true. One bad experience will negatively bias all of their answers.

Here’s the question I ask that sometimes stumps people:

What experience to you want the patient to have?

(If you aren’t in health care, substitute the word “customer” for “patient.”)

If your scores on “Were the staff concerned for my comfort?” are low, think about what experience would give the patient confidence that staff were concerned. Being continuously asked about it with a rote phrase probably isn’t going to do it. But leaving them parked in the hallways with no interaction might be (for example), something that creates discomfort.  (“Comfort” has a psychological, as well as a physical component.) People will put up with a lot of discomfort if they know the higher purpose. It’s hard to make the case for parking the patient in the hallway. That just says “I don’t have anywhere to take you.”

So think deliberately. If everything the patient experienced were something you were doing on purpose, because it contributed to the experience you want the patient to have, what would that look like?

Don’t worry right now about whether that is hard or not. Let go of your internal issues for a while. Just sketch out that awesome “insanely great” patient experience. You don’t have to think of every detail. What are the attributes? What is the flow, from the patient’s perspective – the sequence of events they will experience.

For example, construct a story, told from the patient’s point of view, of coming in for outpatient surgery.

What happens from the time they have their initial consultation until they are on their way home. (And what happens after they get home?) Again, don’t worry about “we can’t do that because…” stuff, we’ll deal with that later.

What experience, what story, would leave the patient with the impression that you are working as a team, that you know what you are doing, that there is a competent process at work to provide safe, effective care and actually care about their experience?

Don’t forget to include your administrative communications in this process – what phone calls do they get? What paperwork do they get? What does crystal-clear billing look like?

Build a block diagram, a story board, of the patients’ ideal flow through the system.

What would a wait-free, smooth flowing experience look like?

Learning From Disney

In Disney theme parks, they make a clear distinction between “On Stage” and “Off Stage.” Their employees (all of them) are referred to as “Cast Members.” Anytime a Cast Member is visible to guests, they are “On Stage.” They are performing. They are part of creating the story, the experience, they want the guest to have.

Meanwhile, behind the scenes, in the tunnels, off stage, are the processes required to create the “On Stage” performance. It’s a show.

The guest experience is designed. Once it is designed, it is created by the process.

Disney’s priorities (in order) are:

  • Safety
  • Courtesy
  • Show
  • Efficiency

Translated, they place putting an a good performance above being efficient. But if pushed, a cast member may break character if required to be courteous. And they will get snippy with someone who persists in doing something unsafe in spite of courteous requests.

What on Earth does this have to do with health care?

Everything. That is if you are trying to create a safe, professional and competent impression to your patients.

What is the Actual Patient Experience?

Now we have a sense of the ideal, it’s time to understand what is really happening. Again, start with the patient’s experience.

What happens at each interaction? What questions are asked? Who asks them? How often are they moved? Where and when are they waiting, and why? 

Use “typical” rather than exceptional cases here. One thing I am seeing is, yes, every case is different but in reality, most are handled within a routine.

Pay attention to the “on stage” part of your process. This is what the patient sees, and what creates their experience.

At the same time, look at the behind-the-scenes “off stage” flow to see what might be causing a less-than-ideal patient flow. For example – The patient’s experience is that he is alone in an exam room waiting, reading Time Magazine for 20 minutes. That is the “on stage” part.

Meanwhile, “back stage” you have a nurse on the phone trying to get the results of tests that were done by another provider. (This is a real-life example.)* (There was also a physician waiting on them!)

Your Processes Create the Patient Experience

(Again, substitute “customer” for “patient” and this becomes an essay for everyone.)

Your Patient Satisfaction scores are driven by the patients’ experience.

The patients’ experience is established by your “on-stage” (patient facing) process.

Your “on-stage” process is the result of your “off-stage” execution.

The people making the improvements need to be challenged, and focused on, creating a specific experience for the patient.

Linking to Policy Deployment

All of that begs the question: Who should make the linkage between process performance and patient satisfaction, because those scores do matter, in a very big way.

Let’s look at this from a policy deployment standpoint.

Certainly Administration (the executives) should be tracking their scores. From their perspective, these are an important (along with patient safety, quality, length-of-stay, financial performance, etc) aspects of how the organization is performing.

They see the overall performance and trends. And they can see how each department is performing.

But the patient’s experience is cross-functional. The patient only sees “the hospital.” He doesn’t see, and doesn’t care, that Admissions, the lab, the Emergency Department, Outpatient Surgery, Environmental Services (who cleans his room) and Radiology are all different departments. The patient doesn’t see, and doesn’t care, that “the clinic” and “the hospital” are separate legal entities.

As part of Policy Deployment, Administration should be establishing operational standards and challenging the Department Directors to meet them. Those standards are based on what Administration believes will move the needle on the patient satisfaction scores. In reality, this is also an experiment. Does this operational standard meet our customer’s expectations?

They also are making sure the Directors are working on the cross-functional interfaces between their departments. (If it isn’t the Directors’ job to do this, whose job is it?)

Key Point: Until you are consistently delivering the product or service, there is little point in trying to change things up. Set a standard, strive to meet it. Once things are somewhat stable, then you can evaluate whether your standard is adequate or not. Think about it… what is the alternative? You have random execution that is randomly working. You don’t know why. You can’t talk to people about performance until they can demonstrate consistent execution.

Summary

Your patient satisfaction scores reflect the experience of the patient.

The patient experience is the outcome of your on stage process performance.

Your on stage process performance is ultimately driven by your back stage process execution.

If you want to improve your patient satisfaction scores, establish the operational standard you want to strive for that you think will improve patient satisfaction.

Then strive to develop a process that meets that operational standard.

THEN you can evaluate whether your process is adequate.

_________

*This was an obstacle in front of a target condition focusing on hitting a standard for “In, Seen and Out” within a specific time frame for routine pre-procedure consultations. They fixed it. Patients no longer have to sit and wait while someone hunts down those test results.

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Toyota Kata: Is That Really an Obstacle?

“What obstacles do you think are preventing you from reaching the target condition?”

When the coach asks that question, she is curious about what the learner / improver believes are the unresolved issues, sources of variation, problems, etc. that are preventing the process from operating routinely the way it should (as defined by the target condition).

I often see things like “training” or worse, a statement that simply says we aren’t operating the way the target says.

Here is a test I have started applying.

Complete this sentence:

“We can’t (describe the target process) because ________.”

Following the word “because,” read the obstacle verbatim. Read exactly what it says on the obstacle parking lot. Word for word.

If that does not make a grammatically coherent statement that makes sense, then the obstacle probably needs to be more specific.

 

 

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Toyota Kata: Don’t Change The Target Condition Date

A target condition has three main elements:

  • An achieve-by date.
  • A level of performance that will be achieved.
  • The operational process that will be in place.

The details of the #2 and #3 can take a number of forms, but today I want to talk about the achieve-by date.

Keep the time horizon fairly short, especially at first. For a typical process that is carried out every day, I usually suggest a two week time horizon. My rationale is this: I don’t want the target condition to seem big or complex. Two weeks is enough time to understand and significantly improve a handful of steps in a complex process. It is a short enough time to keep the improver from trying to fix a complex or global issue all at once.

For example, if a process is carried out in multiple departments, two weeks is enough to try experiments in one of them, but not enough to implement a change across the whole organization. Having that time horizon helps establish the principle of small, quick, steps rather than trying to develop some kind of implementation plan.

It is important to set an actual date, not just “in two weeks” – in two weeks from when?

But here is the most important part: Once the date is set, don’t change it.

If the date comes up, and the target condition hasn’t been reached, it is very tempting to say “Just a few more days.” But once a date is slipped, the date means nothing, because it can be slipped again.

Instead, missing the date is time to step back, reflect, and go back through the steps of the improvement kata.

This is the same thing you should do when you hit your target condition.

If you hit your target way early, or miss the date, it is also time to reflect on what you didn’t understand about your current condition when you established that target. Then:

  • Confirm understanding of the direction and challenge.
  • Grasp the current condition. This is important. Don’t just assume you know what it is. Take the time to do some observations and confirm everything is working the way you think.
  • Establish the next target condition. This means erasing the old target condition, starting with a clean obstacle sheet, looking at the current condition and establishing a new target condition. I would discourage you from simply re-stating the old one. List the obstacles that you think are now preventing you from reaching the new target.
  • Pick one obstacle (an easy one, not the one you were beating your head on for the last two weeks!), and design your next experiment. Start your PDCA iteration.

Coaches: Don’t let your learner just adjust the date. There is a learning opportunity here, be sure to capitalize on it.

 

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Notes and Thoughts from KataCon 2

The 2016 Toyota Kata Summit developed some interesting themes.

Even though the keynote addresses were not coordinated, one message emerged across them all.

This is about leadership development.

And by that, I don’t mean it is about further developing those in leadership positions. I mean it is about developing good thinking and leadership skills in everyone who chooses to deliberately learn. The “kata” are a structure for that learning, but learning the kata themselves is not the goal. It is a means to the end.

I know I have said this before, but now I see the beginning of a shift in the larger community, away from “kata as a problem solving tool” and toward “kata as a practice routine” for something bigger than the kata themselves.

Some Quotes and Themes

Improvement cannot be separate from management.

– Amy Mervak

This may well seem obvious. But in the vast majority of organizations, improvement is the job of the Continuous Improvement Department, or the Quality Department, or some other staff department.

If they are working on developing the improvement skills of line management, then all well and good. But if they are working directly on making improvements, then that is the problem at the root of “lack of leadership engagement.”

Intentional practice results in intentional learning.

– Amy Mervak

Put another way, without intentional practice, learning is a matter of luck. If you want your organization to actually learn a new behavior, then people and teams have to deliberately practice it until it is a habit.

What differentiates excellent organizations from their competitors is effective execution of strategy.

– Mike Rother

There is no shortage of effective models. But those models all require shifts in how people respond, especially under stress, to the unexpected.

Even in the best of times,

We want to learn something new, but we habitually follow our [existing] routines.

– Mike Rother

Our brains, and therefore we, are hard-wired to do this. And “under stress” is not the time to try to learn a new response. It has to be practiced in a space where it is safe to screw it up and learn.

This actually goes pretty deep. I have worked with a few organizations, and one in particular, where everyone adamantly agrees what changes must be made. But they don’t take active steps to get there.

Which brings us to:

40 priorities = No priorities.

Strategic priorities must be focused and formally expressed.

– Amy Mervak

It doesn’t do any good to have a Grand Vision if it is vague, or so diluted that Everything Is Important. Your job (management) is to be clear so people don’t waste their time working hard on something that doesn’t make a difference.

Although he was not present, Bill Costantino was quoted:

A long discussion is a symptom of lack of clarity on the current condition or the challenge.

– Bill Costantino

In other words, “What are we trying to accomplish here, and where are we now?” never get asked or clarified.

On Culture Change Modification

An interesting point was made about culture. Yes, we are working to shift the culture of the organization. But “change” may imply that we are changing everything. In reality, we have to consider:

  • What are we choosing to keep, maintain, enhance?
  • What are we choosing to alter?
  • What are we choosing to let go?

If these are deliberate decisions made by the team, then there is an opportunity to make purposeful adjustments, and frame them in the context of “What are we striving for?”

So perhaps the term “culture modification” is more appropriate.

Dave Kilgore’s presentation (full disclosure: I nominated Dave as a keynote) highlighted an organizational culture as the challenge for his advance team.

image

And because they are focused on creating this culture, they are making tangible progress.

Brad Frank asked the audience an interesting question.

If someone brings you a problem, there are two problems. What is the second one?

-Brad Frank

I have alluded to this in previous posts. As a leader, you have to ask “Why was my organization unable to make the correct decision without coming to me?”

Every time someone has to come and ask you something, it means you are an obstacle to their success.

– Brad Frank

Dave Kilgore emphasized the same thing and uses David Marquet’s “Ladder of Leadership” model both as a way to advance the culture, as well as a way to assess the current condition by listening to people.

I wanted to get these notes up there. I’ll cover Day 2 in another post.

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Countdown to KataCon

The 2nd Toyota Kata summit is February 18-19 in Fort Lauderdale, and I plan to be there.

imageThis year looks to be more of a cross-section of people and companies that are working on their own versions of the culture shift. There isn’t “one way” and it looks like the keynotes reflect that.

I have a little insight into one of those presentations – Dave Kilgore of Continental Automotive in Newport News, VA. When the community was asked to nominate prospective keynote presenters last fall, I was quick to get Dave’s name up there because I think he has a compelling story. He knows what worked, and didn’t work, for his site and why.

 

  • They’ve tried this more than once, and kept trying. This time it is working. He’ll talk about what they learned in the process.
  • They are focusing on the culture of the organization.
  • He talks about the journey of organizing his advance team, what they do, and why they do it.
  • And they have developed a pretty cool “kata” for coaching coaches that is simple and effective.

The other thing I can say is that the conference organizers are also learning. This won’t be a clone of least year. They are working hard to make sure you are getting a diverse set of speakers with compelling messages. Each speaker has a senior / experienced member of the community to give feedback as they develop their presentation. You are unlikely to see a raw unpolished PowerPoint dump.

And finally, I would love to meet you if you are reading my stuff here. So let me know if you are planning on attending!

And if you are THINKING about attending, but haven’t registered yet, here is the web site: http://katasummit.com/

Mark

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Toyota Kata and Hoshin Kanri

Jeff asked an interesting question in a comment to the post Often Skipped: Understand the Challenge and Direction:

[Hoshin Kanri] seems to suggest I reach long term objectives (vision) through short term initiatives/projects as if I can (should?) know the steps. [Toyota Kata] says I don’t know the way to reach my long term vision, so I limit focus to next target condition and experiment (repeatedly) toward the vision.

Seems contradictory to me. What am I missing?

Let’s start out with digging into what hoshin kanri is supposed to do. I say “supposed to do” because there are a lot of activities that are called “hoshin kanri” that are really just performance objectives or wish lists.

First, hoshin kanri is a Japanese term for a Japanese-developed process. We westerners need to understand that Japanese culture generally places a high value on harmony and harmonious action. Where many Americans (I can’t speak for Europeans as well) may well be comfortable with constant advocacy and debate about what should be worked on, that kind of discussion can be unsettling for a Japanese management team.

Thus, I believe the original purpose of hoshin kanri was to provide a mechanism for reaching consensus and alignment within a large, complex organization.

In the late 1980’s and early 1990’s, hoshin kanri concepts emerged out of their Japanese incubator and came to western business. In this process, the DNA combined and merged with western management practices, and in many (never say “all”) western interpretations, the hoshin plan tends to be something patched onto the existing Management By Objectives framework.

That, in and of itself, isn’t a bad thing. Hoshin kanri’s origins are from MBO migrating to Japan where they took MBO and mixed in Japanese cultural DNA.

However, I’m not comfortable that what we have ended up with in the west meets the original concept or intent.

With that as background, let’s get to the core of Jeff’s question.

What is the purpose of hoshin kanri?

Let’s start with chaos. “We want continuous improvement.”

In other words, “go find stuff to improve,” and maybe report back on what you are going to work on. A lot of organizations do something like this. They provide general guidance (if they even do that), and then maybe have the sub-organization come tell and report what they expect to accomplish. I have experienced this first hand.

“I expect my people to be working on continuous improvement,” says the executive from behind his desk in the corner office. Since he has delegated the task, his job is to “support his empowered workforce” to make things better.

image_thumb.pngFlatly, that doesn’t work unless the culture is extremely well aligned and there is a
continuous conversation and stream of consciousness within the organization. That is very rare. How to achieve that alignment is the problem hoshin kanri is intended to solve. It isn’t the only way to do it, but it is an effective method.*

A Superficial Overview of the Process of Hoshin Kanri

The leadership sees or sets a challenge for the organization – something they must be able to do that, today, they cannot. This is not (in my opinion) the same as “creating a crisis.” A crisis just scares people. Fear is not a good motivator for creative improvement.

Different parts of the organization may get a piece of the challenge, or the leadership team may, as a whole, work to figure out what they need to accomplish. Here is an important distinction: “What must be accomplished” is not the same as a plan to accomplish it. A challenge, by its very nature, means “We don’t know exactly what we will have to do to get there.”

This can take the form of KPI targets, but that is not what you are doing if there is a simple percent improvement expected with no over-arching rationale.

Now comes the catchball.

Catchball is not Negotiation of the Goal

Catchball is often interpreted as negotiating the goals. That’s not it. The goals are established by a market or competitive or other compelling need. So it isn’t “We need to improve yield by 7%.” followed by “Well, reasonably, I can only give you 5%.” It doesn’t work like that.

Nor is it “You need to improve your yield by 7%, and if you don’t get it then no bonus for you.” That approach is well known to drive some unproductive or ineffective behavior.

And it isn’t “You’re going to improve your yield by 7% and this is what you are going to do to get there.”

Instead, the conversation might sound something like “We need to improve our yield by 7% to enable our expected market growth. Please study your processes as they relate to yield, and come back and let me know what you think you need to work on as the first major step in that direction.”

In other words, please grasp your current condition, and come back with your next target condition.

That sounds a lot like the Coaching Kata to me.

SIDEBAR:

Toyota Kata is not a problem solving method. 

Toyota Kata is a set of practice routines designed to help you learn the thinking pattern that enables an organization to do hoshin kanri, and any other type of systematic improvement that is navigating through “We want to get there, but aren’t sure exactly how.”

An executive I am working with mentioned today that Toyota Kata is what is informing their policy deployment process. Without that foundation of thinking, their policy deployment would have been an exercise in assigning action items and negotiating the goals.

So what is the difference between hoshin kanri and Toyota Kata?

There isn’t a difference. They are two parts of the same thing. Hoshin kanri is a mechanism for aligning the organization’s efforts to focus on a challenge (or a few challenges).

Toyota Kata is a practice routine for learning the thinking pattern that makes hoshin kanri (or policy deployment) function as intended.

In hoshin planning, you are planning the destination, and perhaps breaking down individual efforts to get there, but nothing says you already know how to get there.

It isn’t an “action plan” and it isn’t a list of discrete, known action items. Rather, it is specific about what you must accomplish, and if you accomplish those things, then the results are predicted to add up to what you need.

What to Do vs How to Get It Done

At some point, someone has to figure out how to make the process do what is required. That has to happen down at the interface between people and the work actually being done. It can’t be mandated from above. Hoshin helps to align the efforts of improving the work with the improvements required to meet the organization’s challenge.

From the other side, the Improvement Kata is not about short-term objectives. The first step is “understand the challenge and direction.” Part of the coach’s job is to make sure this understanding takes place, and to ensure that the short-term target condition is moving in the direction of the challenge.

We set shorter term target conditions so we aren’t overwhelmed trying to fix everything at once, and to have a stable anchor for the next step. It enables safer learning by limiting the impact of learning that something didn’t work.

However, in Toyota Kata, while we might not know exactly how to get there, but we are absolutely clear where we have to end up.

The American Football analogy works well here. The challenge is “Score a touchdown.” But if you tried to score a touchdown on every play, you would likely lose the game. The target condition is akin to “get a first down.” You are absolutely clear what direction you have to move the ball, and absolutely clear where you need to end up in order to score. But you aren’t clear about the precise steps that are going to get you there. You have to figure that out as you go.

Hoshin Kanri focuses the effort – “What to work on.”

Toyota Kata teaches the thinking behind “How to work on it.”

*Though hoshin kanri may be effective, getting it to work effectively is a journey of learning that requires perseverance. It is much more than filling out a set of forms.

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Toyota Kata in Health Care

I’m about four months into helping a major regional hospital develop a solid foundation for applying the Improvement Kata and Coaching Kata to learn “improvement thinking.”

They now have active improvement boards running in pre-op, post-op, surgery, radiology, the lab, the emergency department, the cardio-vascular floor, medical-surgery floor, ICU, cardiac rehab, billing, admissions, case management, and supplies. I think that’s everything going right now.

Several of these departments have more than one board, and a few are beginning to get started spontaneously.

We are starting to see the culture begin to shift in many of these departments. Staff are getting engaged in improving the work flows, administration team members are more engaged with the staff.

Directors and managers are starting to reach across organizational boundaries to deal with obstacles and problems at the departmental interfaces.

And the organizations are starting to shift how they talk. When confronted with a list of problems, leaders are starting to ask “OK, which one are we addressing first?” Leaders are asking “What do you expect to happen?” and “What did we learn?” when talking about actions. They are working to engage thinking in their organizations vs. just giving direction.

Is it all rainbows and unicorns? Of course not. But the effort is clearly being made, and it shows. My overall process coaching is getting much more nuanced, because they are “getting” the fundamentals.

OK, so what did we do?

We started out with two weeks of pretty intense “kick-start.” One week was half-days of training and simulation (with a morning and afternoon group), getting a feel for the rhythm of the improvement kata, and a taste of the coaching kata, and culminating with the first round of improvement boards getting set up with at least a direction, if not a clear challenge.

We deliberately did not use industrial examples. And now that I’ve done it a few times, I can incorporate more health care language and examples into the sessions, which just makes it easier.

Week two was pairs of learners/coaches being coached through grasping the current condition, establishing a target condition, and the first couple of PDCA cycles / experiments.

But what made it work is they kept at it.

The next month, we did it again. We coached the established boards to tighten up their game, while establishing a series of new ones.

Because they had kept at it, the first round of boards now had a routine for their improvement cycles and coaching. And once there is a pattern, then we can work on improving it.

What I am learning.

Just get them going, then leave them alone for a while to keep at it. That lets the team establish a baseline routine for how they are practicing. Then I can come back periodically and propose adjustments on one or two items that let them step it up to the next level.

I am finding this much more effective than demanding they get it perfectly from day one. There is just too much to think about.

Establish a target condition, have them practice to that pattern, grasp the current condition, establish a new target… for the team’s practice. Get the improvement engine running, even if roughly, then work on tuning it for performance.

To be clear, this is my normal approach (and it is different, I am told, from what a lot of others try to do), but I am getting a lot of validation for it here.

Results

A member of the administration (leadership team) who is actively coaching shared this chart with me today. I have “sanitized” it a bit. Suffice it to say these three lines represent the percentage of deliveries of three separate (but related) processes within or before the target turn-around time of 30 minutes. Their challenge is to turn 95% of them around in 30 minutes or less.

The vertical red line represents when they started applying the Improvement Kata to this process.

Otherwise, the picture speaks for itself.

image

They have recognized that there is no silver bullet here. Rather, there have been dozens (or more) of changes that each save a little bit of time that is adding up.

As one of my early Japanese teachers said “To save a minute, you must find sixty ways to save a second.” and that is exactly what they are doing here. They are finding a minute here, a few seconds there, and anchoring them in changes to the way they organize the work flow.

Lab Team: “Way to go!”